final draft

She is largely self-taught, having started in the food
industry as a kitchen hand in a steakhouse before
rising up the ranks and venturing into desserts. “My
mum is definitely the centre point of it all. I mean, KOI
itself stands for ‘Kids of Ike’.”
One glance at the cake-slices topped with seasonal
fruits is enough to tell us that the Poernomo brothers
are creative; but how does that creativity emerge?
“A lot of people ask me that question,” Reynold says
thoughtfully, “and it’s one I can’t really answer myself.
I don’t know where I get my creativity from. I like to
work with new techniques that I’ve come across. And
I like things to look natural, almost rustic. Something
that, say, looks like a garden that you can dig through
and find surprises. At the end of the day, I just want
something to be fun. I’m not bound to a singular
cuisine or a singular idea. I want my concepts to be
flexible.”
His approach to desserts seems to be just that:
welcoming of new ideas, but analytical in his process
rather than spontaneous. It would be in an empty
house after school, taking advantage of the absence
of his working parents and siblings, where Reynold
would read his mother’s cookbooks and try his hand
at the recipes. “When MasterChef aired, I watched
the first season and I saw how food could be so
different. From there, my interest in food grew. My
mum would always be working, my brothers too, and
my dad would also be working late nights. They’re
all in hospitality, so I’d be at home by myself. So, I’d
just read cookbooks. And watch Harvard lectures on
YouTube where chefs came in and showed the science
of cooking. That was really amazing, watching them
break down the different components of what cooking
can be, seeing the techniques that they used. The
cookbooks that my mum had laying around weren’t
really the books that taught you how to bake a basic
cake, or how to make a roast chicken. They were
more experimental, more what you’d call these days
‘modern’ cuisines.”